Ecotoxicity of, and remediation with, engineered inorganic nanoparticles in the environment

This article presents recent developments on the use of inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) for environmental remediation in polluted soil, water and gas. The number of publications on these topics has grown exponentially in recent years, especially those focused on wastewater treatment. Among these topics, removal of metals has become the most popular, although some works relate to the use of nanomaterials for the elimination of nutrients (e.g., nitrogen and some persistent organic pollutants). However, this growth has not been accompanied by knowledge about the behavior of NPs once used and released into the environment. In this article, we also comment upon the current situation with respect to NP toxicology (nanotoxicology). A remarkable number of different toxicology tests has been applied to NPs, often making it very difficult to interpret or to generalize the results. We analyze in detail the bioluminescence, Daphnia magna and other tests, and give some preliminary results obtained in our work. © 2011.